[MargaretR]

I raised this issue in my thread about disguised mobile phone masts -

"A major problem in the 40's and 50's (I lived through it) was air pollution. All the terraced houses (there were far more of them then) burnt coal. There were numerous mill chimneys all belching out smoke too. In winter when everybody needed to heat their homes a short walk outside resulted in soot specks on your face -ladies carried powder compacts to conceal the muck.

On the day after bonfire night you didn't stir out unless you absolutely had to because of thick smog that lasted all day if not longer.In London the smog spells were frequent and notorious for causing deaths. Burnley geographically is in a basin and had the highest rates of suicide because they rarely saw the sun in winter, and a shorter life expectancy due to lung disease (partly due to 'miners lung').

Cigarette smoking was fashionable and accepted because we were not aware that the smoke pollution was damaging.The Smoke Control Act came in the early 60's. Coal was replaced by coke which still gave off fumes but not smoke. Eventually gas and electric fires were used and even later - central heating.

We have now replaced one sort of air pollution with others-
vehicle exhaust fumes (known to be damaging- vehicle ownership was rare in the 40s & 50s) and these high tech microwave and radio emissions ,which we are not sure about ..............YET!!!!."

Nobody responded to it, making it the end of the thread.
I try to explain to my son that the reason for my 'old lady's cough' is more than just fags, but if they didnt live through it they cant conceive how bad the air pollution was.